Infection rate was highest in our more city/rural areas of the state
Interestingly, the cumulative cases per 100,000 shows that the counties with the highest COVID rates were in our urban/town/rural county group (22,424 per 100,000) and our town/rural county group (21,998 per 100,000). These were following by entirely urban county group (20,324 per 100,000) and our entirely urban group (18,568 per 100,000). One would think that the counties with the densest population would have the highest case rate. However, one theory is that both the urban/town/rural counties and the town/rural counties were just dense enough to spread the virus while also being more reluctant to take precautions to stop the spread. To test this idea, the seven county metro was removed from the “Entirely urban” county group and sure enough, the entirely urban county group (sans 7-county metro) had the highest cases per 100,000.
High infection rates in greater Minnesota could be do to industry make-up
Infections per 100,000 in greater Minnesota were highest in counties that have a large manufacturing employment sector (including food processing). Counties such as Kandiyohi, Roseau, Nobles, and counties surrounding Waseca and Mower had the highest cases per 100,000 in the entire state. However, these counties also have a high employment in manufacturing which were kept open during the beginning of the pandemic due to their “essential” status. Large spreader events occurred in these plants which likely drove up the case count.
Highest death rates from COVID are in our rural areas
Most interesting is that although our most rural areas had the lowest cumulative cases per 100,000, they unfortunately had the highest death rate of all counties. Entirely rural counties had a death rate of 275 per 100,000 throughout the pandemic. The lowest was in our entirely urban counties with 188 deaths per 100,000. This is most likely due to the fact that rural areas have a larger percentage of their population that is older, sicker, and have a higher percentage of people with co-morbidity. Interestingly, the same counties that had the highest case rates (Kandiyohi, Roseau, etc…) did not have the highest death rates indicating that the virus spread through a healthier population in those counties. In addition to these factors, the higher death rate in our rural areas likely has to do with the fact mentioned in our next highlight….
Significantly lower vaccination rates in rural areas
The highest vaccination rate exists in our entirely urban counties with around 75% of their population having the full series of shots. Our rural areas had between 60% and 65% of their population with the full series of shots. The lowest percentages exist in the counties just north of the twin cities metro where many of those counties barely have 50% of their population vaccinated with not even one shot. There were some rural regions that were surprising however. Counties in Southwest and Northeast in particular had some of the highest vaccination rates in Greater Minnesota.
The lowest vaccination rates are among American Indian populations
The percentage of American Indians vaccinated with at least one dose was the lowest among all race and ethnicity with 60.3% and only 53.5% with the complete vaccination series. Asian and Pacific Islanders have the highest with over 85% with at least one dose followed by whites and Hispanic with 70.5%.
Active cases are estimates of the current number of people currently infected with COVID-19. This estimate is calculated by subtracting the number of cumulative cases for each day minus the total cumulative cases from two weeks prior.
The trend lines of active cases per 100,000 show a wave like pattern as we would expect in a pandemic, with the first wave occurring during the 2020-2021 fall, then the delta wave, and the most recent omicron wave.
Although all regions and county groups follow this trend, counties and regions in rural areas of the state had higher peaks throughout the pandemic, particularly in the 2020-2021 fall wave. The urban/town/rural mix and town/rural mix had some of the highest rates in the state. However, the most recent omicron wave has been slightly lower in our entirely rural and town/rural mix counties compared to the other county groups.
This trend follows into regional breakdowns where our more rural areas of the state had higher peak rates compared to the seven county metro. The most recent omicron wave has hit the Southeast particularly hard.
The charts below are the cumulative COVID cases.
The urban/town/rural mix and town/rural mix county groups have the highest cumulative case rate in the state with 22,424 and 21,998 per 100,000 as of February 1st, 2022. Our entirely rural county group has remained slightly below compared to the other county groups As of February 1st, 2022, they had a cumulative COVID case rate of 18,569 per 100,000 which was the lowest out of all the RUCA groups.
When broken down by region, the Central and Southeast planning regions have the highest cumulative cases per 100,000 with 24,432 and 24,058 respectively. The lowest rates have been in the seven county metro and Northeast Minneapolis.
Culture, willingness to believe in preventative measures to stop the spread of COVID, as well as industry/employment makeup (think meat packing plants) in a region all likely played a role in the varied spread of COVID in each region. One way to test this idea is to see if entirely urban counties differed significantly in cases depending on whether the entirely urban county was located in the seven county metro or Greater Minnesota.
The RUCA special chart provides the cumulative cases per 100,000 with the 7-county metro broken away from the “entirely urban” county group. This significantly changes the numbers compared to the traditional RUCA chart in the section above. Instead of entirely urban county group being rather low in terms of cumulative cases per 100,000, it is now the highest with 23,256 cumulative cases per 100,000. The seven-county metro counties are the second LOWEST with 19,889 cases per 100,000.
It’s fair to say that culture and following public health guidelines played a role in this, but we also can’t ignore some of the other reasons such as industry makeup. There are a lot of counties in Greater Minnesota (including entirely urban ones) that have significant manufacturing employers where CDC guidelines were likely hard to follow. We can all remember some of the breakouts that occurred at the beginning of the pandemic when there were super spreaders events occurring at employers that were “essential” and did not close.
The map below really points this out. There are counties such as Nobles, Kandiyohi, the counties around Waseca and Mower, as well as Roseau which all had very high cases per 100,000. These counties also have plants that never shut down and had super spreader events.